Law Commons^™

Derrida's Ethical Turn And America: Looking Back From The Crossroads Of Global Terrorism And The Enlightenment, Michel Rosenfeld

Articles

Derrida has denied that he has taken an ethical turn in the 80's and 90's. This article argues, however, that Derrida's deconstruction of the ethical implications of major moral, social or political issues, such as law and justice, friendship, hospitality, forgiveness, the death penalty and most recently global terrorism, does result in an ethical turn. This turn leads Derrida to articulate an ethics of difference which focuses on diversity and the other, and America as compared to Europe stands for greater diversity and looms as Derrida's and Europe's "other." In contrast to Derrida's America is Habermas's Europe, his Kantian ethics …